Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group — the Kwug Blog: guolaosi

Showing posts with label guolaosi. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 May 2018

Brexit as a lever for further Tory attacks on our rights

A KUWG member has asked me to publish the below as a blog post after I had e-mailed it to him as an update on the Green Party's response to Labour's 2008 'welfare reform green paper'.

I suspect that the Tories are seeing Brexit as an opportunity to further attack disabled and other people's rights by rewriting our laws. The EU has a Working Time Directive that limits the hours that Brits have to work, for example. http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/?s=Working+time+directive&x=0&y=0

Remember Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary saying that Britons should learn to work "more like the Chinese"? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/05/hunt-tax-credit-cuts-make-britons-work-like-chinese-or-americans

The Chinese 'guolaosi' would think differently, no doubt. As Johann Hari reported in the Independent in 2010:

"Deaths from overwork are so common in Chinese factories that they have a word for it: guolaosi. China Daily estimates that 600,000 people are killed this way every year, mostly making goods for us. Li had never experienced any health problems, his family says, until he started this work schedule; Foxconn say he died of asthma and his death had nothing to do with them. The night Li died, yet another Foxconn worker committed suicide – the tenth this year."
Souce: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-and-now-for-some-good-news-2044578.html

There is also this involving the Justice Minister

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/minister-suggests-realities-of-the-world-mean-government-will-not-halt-attack-on-rights/

It fits in with Naomi Klein's concept of 'disaster capitalism' as turning catastrophes into opportunities for more of Milton Friedman's

"holy trinity" -- privatization, deregulation and cuts to social spending -- in which governments dismantle trade barriers, abandon public ownership, reduce taxes, eliminate the minimum wage, cut health and welfare spending, and privatize education. She calls the means of achieving this goal "disaster capitalism" and describes how it has resulted in a worldwide redistribution of income and wealth to the already rich at the expense of economic solvency for the middle and lower classes.

Source: http://www.naomiklein.org/reviews/ms-magazine-review-shock-doctrine

As was merely touched upon in Writing off Workfare by Anne Gray and myself in 2008, UK 'welfare reforms' since the time Peter Lilley was the responsible government minister/secretary of state have been strongly influenced by dodgy American health insurance giant Unum who regard the UK as a 'potential market'. Medically retired RAF veteran and health care professional Mo Stewart has elaborated much of this with documentation.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-researchers-book-exposes-corporate-demolition-of-welfare-state/

Fundamental to the way the UN Disability Committee regards disability is the Social Model of Disability. http://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/5/3/35
The Social Model of Disability focuses on physical, economic and social barriers to the inclusion of people with impairments that makes us disabled. That perspective is fundamental to Green Party of England & Wales policy on disability. https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/dy.html

Unum's model is called the 'bio-psychosocial model' and is fundamental to the Health & Work Programme and its 'psycho-coercion'. Useful links on this include:

Unum is not the only global company involved in UK 'welfare reforms'. The principal contractor for the 'Universal Credit' IT deal is Accenture. The subcontractor for the forms used for online application for UC is Atos!
http://www.information-age.com/dwp-awards-accenture-500m-universal-credit-it-deal-1666348/

Accenture, incidentally, is now providing much of the reporting for centre-right think tank Reform.uk in its promotion of 'digital jobcentres' and more, much more.

"... The future of public services: digital jobcentres, sets out the opportunity to transform public employment services in the UK. This paper is the fourth in a series, conducted in partnership with Accenture, which looks at the role technology will play in the future delivery of public services. "Jobcentre Plus – the UK’s public employment service – won plaudits for its performance over the financial crisis, but the story may be different if Brexit triggers an economic slowdown. The introduction of in-work services under Universal Credit will increase demand, while the Work and Health Programme will require jobcentres to take a more central role in the delivery of disability employment support services."
Source: http://www.reform.uk/publication/the-future-of-public-services-digital-jobcentres/

What were the sources of those 'plaudits' that "Jobcentre Plus — the UK's public employment service — won ... for its performance over the financial crisis"? One of those sources, as I recall, was David Cameron and I think the other was the National Audit Office. You can find out for yourself at http://www.reform.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-future-of-public-services-digital-jobcentres.pdf

and remember that Reform.uk is a registered charity. See also https://www.google.com/search?q=nao+dwp

Had they spoken to the people that blogger Kate Belgrave talks to in her 'Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts' blog, no doubt they would have got a different story regarding how well the Department for Work & Pensions has performed. https://www.katebelgrave.com/?s=dwp&submit=Search and https://www.katebelgrave.com/?s=dwp+foi&submit=Search

Alan WheatleyCo-author of 'Writing off Workfare', writing in a personal capacity

Sunday, 30 July 2017

New mental health workers and the centenary of Passchendaele

Today the BBC has announced a Government recruitment drive for more mental health nurses.(1) Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt appears to be acting like Kitchener, the man in the pointing finger 'Your Country Needs You' recruitment poster pin-up for World War 1. Hunt is also the Health Secretary who previously stated that the British should work more like the Chinese workforce.(2) In China they have a word 'guolaosi' referring to those worked to death in the production of consumer goods, as pointed out in my referenced comment on a previous Kate Belgrave blog post.

Today we are also at the centenary of the start of the WW1 battle of Passchendaele.(3) You may also wish to refer to my previous Kwug Blog posting [Department for Work & Pensions] making poor people mentally ill at great cost to the NHS as we approach centenary of a WW1 blood bath(4), and my comment on Kate Belgrave's blog post Student debt dominates debate — but where's the political sympathy for people crushed by council tax debt, DWP loans, rent arrears and sanctions debt?(5)

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Notes

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

Control by the workforce vs deskilling, robotisation and workfare at the behest of those who rob themselves of their humanity

Many thanks to Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis for bringing the above video to the attention of this blog administrator by publication on Wembley Matters blog.(1) What Phil Asquith says on the video about 'Scientific Management' or Taylorism and Robert Boguslaw emphasises how much work under capitalism or post-industrialism has become dehumanising. Asquith also talks about workers in draughty and damp conditions striking to gain parity with the machines they were working for that had their environmental needs met by default.

Through questions from the floor, the point is also raised about how the education system is essentially against such workers control as the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Corporate Plan helped to initiate.

The type of 'work' that is increasingly presented under jobcentre conditionality is increasingly toward robotisation of the workforce under the direction of people whose definition of 'profit' indicates that they rob themselves of their humanity. Rather than inspiration, the DWP uses psycho-coercion to drive people into the 'workplace'.(2) Do the DWP want to bring the social condition known in China as the guolaosi to British shores?(3)

Under such circumstances, it is little wonder that Mental Health Resistance Network says 'Work is Shit'.(4)

For more constructive, inspirational ideas, there is an evening about both the Grunwick 40 and the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine's Corporate Plan this coming Friday 22 July 2016 at London Anarchist Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 (nearest tubes Whitechapel and Aldgate East).(5)

Link address

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

As 15 Camden Labour councillors and Keir Starmer MP turn on their party leader, who's pulling their strings?

Exposing the 'dependency culture' of Jeremy Corbyn's right wing opponents within the Parliamentary Labour Party and Camden Council

The Camden New Journal has reported that 15 Camden Labour councillors have called upon Jeremy Corbyn to resign as Labour Party leader, even after he was elected with a substantial majority in 2015 on a 'one member, one vote' basis.(1) (2)

Those Labour councillors are "Rishi Madlani, Pat Callaghan, Maeve McCormack, Richard Olszewski, Julian Fulbrook, Georgia Gould, Adam Harrison, Abdul Quadir, Abi Wood, Danny Beales, Lady Kelly, Theo Blackwell, Sarah Hayward, Jonathan Simpson and Phil Jones." Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group members of varying political parties and none wonder what those councillors have ever done to support us in the face of 'austerity' government attacks such as 'bedroom tax', 'overall benefit cap', etc.?(3)

Had they stood up to 'social cleansing' of poor people from the borough, they would have been in very good standing with poor people to the point of poor people not really needing to be prompted to support them at council elections. Maybe they are not looking to poor people's votes at all, but to mainstream voters? Maybe they do not mind the abstention or none turnout of poor people at elections, as long as they can get a majority of the electorate to vote for them?

In such circumstances where these and other opponents of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership are out of touch with poor people, they become unduly dependent upon handouts from very wealthy donors such as ex-Camden Labour Councillor, John Mills, who now heads JML Direct, a Kentish Town (within LB Camden) based company the advertising strap line of which is, "making every day easier" [with products made in China].(4) Do the capitalist profit-oriented economics of having products made in China and transported to the UK make every day easier for the Chinese producers of JML Direct products?

Johann Hari has commented:

"Deaths from overwork are so common in Chinese factories that they have a word for it: guolaosi. China Daily estimates that 600,000 people are killed this way every year, mostly making goods for us."(5)

What kind of conditions are producers of JML Direct products working under? Jeremy Corbyn MP is against workforce exploitation, and has an excellent track record on attacking Chinese human rights and trade abuses.(6)

Against such a backdrop, multimillionaire and major Labour donor John Mills declared that Corbyn's leadership would make Labour 'unelectable'.(7)

Maybe the Labour councillors and MPs who attack Corbyn's 'lack of leadership' are most concerned about the cessation of John Mills' handouts that feed their electioneering? I have heard that Labour in Camden is especially dependent upon the use of JML Direct HQ telephone call centre for their electoral canvassing even. What care they about cheap labour and how their funding is sourced?

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link addresses

Benefits sanctioned? Take mass action!

Commenting on Blog Contents

Comments are approved unless abusive, obscene, completely off the subject, disguised advertising or libellous. Publication of a comment does not imply that the blog administrator or KUWG agree with it.

Please note if I respond to comments it is in my Google log in — never 'Anonymous'

Commenters cause less confusion when they use their own names or pen names. A host of 'Anons' can give very mixed messages. Even if you use the technically easier 'Anonymous' button to make a comment you can still put your name at the end.

How to post a comment on a blogspot blog piece.

Contact us:

Facebook: Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KUWG1

Telephone: 07724 843 973

Meetings: 3pm - 5:30pm
Thursdays, Kingsgate Community Centre
107 Kingsgate Road, London, NW6 2JH

Meeting structure

Helping you feel at home: We meet weekly in the Small Hall at KingsgateCC and start gathering from 3pm, attempting to start the meetings at about 3:15pm and definitely before 3:30pm.

Bring and share refreshments are included. We are not like the 'No eating or drinking on the premises' jobcentre.

The formal meetings start with firstname and what benefit we are on or a one-liner about what brings us to KUWG. (Pensioners and other allies welcome.)

We then ask for casework from those present, arrange who will help with what case, and go onto discussing campaigning leafleting and such outreach activities. We also arrange who will do the chairing or facilitating and note-taking for the following week. Rotating these roles helps minimise the risk of being dominated by one person and helps us build our skills as we share the workload.

Meetings actually finish at about 5:20pm to allow for putting tables and chairs back and leaving the kitchen facilities ready for the next group.

KUWG on Twitter